Once while shopping for groceries I saw a new juice Pomegranate-Raspberry. And as I am always curious for new flavors in winemaking I decided to buy 4 packs. Each carton contained 1.5 liter juice.Three packs were intended for making 5 liter wine and one as reserve for filling up if needed.

As usual I started with analysing the packaging. It mentions that there is 2,8 gram sugar present per 100 ml. That is an extraordinary low figure.

So lets start with doing our own measurements.

First I measured the SG.

I measured the SG using my hydrometer and refractometer. I normally prefer the refractometer because it just needs a tiny drop of juice to measure SG. A refractometer has many advantages above a hydrometer and is at this moment not extremely expensive. Maybe a nice present for the holliday season. If you want to know more about the use and advantages of the refractometerclick here.

Both the hydrometer and refractometer indicated an SG of 1020. My own SG table (which you can download by clicking here) indicates that at such a level there is just 32 gram sugar per liter present. That is not very different from what the packaging indicated. These figures are based on the assumption that there is less as 7 gram acid per liter present.

Acidity.

I determined acidity by titration. And the acid test indeed indicated an acidity of far less then 7. If you want to learn how to measure acidity by titration click here.

The juice had an acidity of just 3 !!!!

So I had bought a juice that almost contained no sugar and topping that it had a low acidity.

The calculations.As the juice had a light red colour I wanted to make a mild blush wine with not too much alcohol. Mostly I give my wines an alcohol percentage of around 11%. That is what I was going to do with this wine to.

In this story I will take the easy road for the alcohol calculations. This will be easier to follow for the beginners amongst us.

First take a look at my own SG table. You can download my table by clicking here.Now look in the table where it indicates an alcohol percentage of 11. You will not find it but you will find the nearest value being 11.2% alcohol. Now look in the column next to it and you can see that to make 11.2% alcohol you will need 210 gram sugar per liter.

I was going to use 4,5 liter juice. This 4,5 liter juice contains (as the packaging indicates and we measured ourselves) 2,8 gram per 100 ml being 28 gram per liter.

We are using 5,4 liter juice, so the juice contains off factory 28 x 4,5 = 126 gram sugar.

We need 1005 gram sugar in our must and therefore have to add 1005 -126 = 879 gram sugar.

Next the acid.

I wanted to make a mildly acidic wine with 5 gram acid per liter. As measured there was 3 gram acid per liter present in the juice. So I just needed to ad 2 gram acid per liter.

Now here is a trap. I used only 4.5 liter. So the juice ontained just 3 gram x 4.5 = 13,5 gram acid.

I needed 5 gram acid per liter which is in total for 5 liter 5 x 5 = 25 gram. So I needed to add 11.5 gram acid. I decided therefore to add 10 gram citric acid. Citric acid is a stronger acid as tartaric acid and therefore you have to add slightly less of it. It also gives the wine some freshness, which I was looking for.

The volume

I had 4,5 liter juice and wanted to make 5 liter wine. So there was 0.5 liter short.

Now I needed to add a lot of sugar to the juice: 879 gram.Sugar takes 0.6 liter in volume per kilo. My needed 879 gram would therefore have a volume of 879 x 0.6 = 0.527 liter. Slighly more as I needed.

Now in comes the magic.At the moment fermentation starts the yeast will consume sugar and produce alcohol and CO2. The CO2 will emerge as bubbles and escape into the air. Therefore the volume of your must will lessen. This makes sure that the extra volume the sugar adds will dissappear into the air.

Enough theoretics.

Lets make wine !!

Day 1.

I poored 3 packs of juice (being 4.5 liter) in a primary, added 10 gram acid and 879 gram sugar. To make sure I was goiung to have a healthy fermentation I also added 5 gram nutrients.

Using a wooden spoon I stirred the must until all sugar was dissolved. This way extra oxygen was introduced into the must which will help fermentation also.

Next I dropped a teaspoon of yeast on the must.

The primary was covered with a cheesecloth fastened with a rubber band.

A few hours later first signs of fermentation were visible. There was some foam on the must.

Day 2.

The must was fermenting vigorously. A real layer of foam covered the must and I could hear the foam cracling, as sign that gas was emerging.

Day 5.

In the evening I poored the must in a carboy that was covered with a rubber bung and an airlock. As expected the volume was just under 5 liter.

A few weeks later.

The wine had finished fermenting and had cleared on its own. A small layer of sediment had formed at the bottom of the carboy. So I went on a holliday.

Again a few weeks later.

When returned from my holliday I decided to bottle the wine. I gained 5 bottles.

This wine has a very special flavor. Mustard is what you taste. To be more specific Honeymustard. This is not an ordinary blush wine made for gulping down on a summer evening. This is a very strong flavor which will do excellent with spicey meals. I will age it for a few years to see how it devellops.

Our national grocer Albert Heijn momentarely also sells this juice, however in 1 liter packs. Read the packaging carefully to discover if sugar contents differs and adjust the recipe accordingly.

A few last words.

Two things will have drawn your attention in this story.

First I did not use a yeast-starter. I mostly make a yeast starter in a 1 liter volume. The packaging for this juice was 1.5 liter packs which would leave me with half a liter juice I would need to keep apart. There could be a chance for contamination. But that is not the most important reason. The real reason was that I trusted in fermentation starting effortless, which it indeed did.

Next you have not read anything about racking the wine. Many winebooks and forums and websites tell you to rack the wine every 3 months or when sediment has formed or so. I have to admit that I almost never rack my wines. To be frank I have never racked any wine in the last 3 or 4 years of my winemaking adventures. That is because my wines are never left that long in a carboy. When a wine has finished and cleared (which always happens without any aid) I bottle it directly. That is in general within 6 months after starting the wine. Therefore chances on spoling are minimal. Racking has no real value in such a short timeline.